I think I didn't frame my question correctly. I'm not asking for a yes/no answer to the question of whether or not these individuals are related - I know it's not that easy. I'm asking what the probability is or, rather, what everyone's empirical experience is. In other words, for the confirmed cousins you have tested (ones with a known paper connection), how many mutual matches did you get (matches "in common with")? In my case (one each): 1st cousin = 30 3rd cousin (1R) = 7 3rd cousin (2R) = 11 4th cousin = 6 4th cousin (1R) = 2 7th cousin = 2 I'm wondering what others have experienced along this line. What's bugging me, I think, is that, after nearly eight years of managing Y-DNA surname projects, I have a pretty good feel for what is and is not reasonable in terms of matching someone in genealogical time. In contrast, with FamilyFinder, I have far too little experience to even have a sense of what is or is not plausible. I'm just looking for ballpark figures here of the typical number of mutual matches at each level of cousin, so I know when to ignore something and when to take a closer look. Or has someone already compiled something along this line? Diana

Diana, The count is entirely dependent on the number of matches you have with primary segment share (the one over 7.5 cM) in location where you have share with the cousin, combined with the makeup of the database. For example, the results for someone with a highly admixed ancestry with a cousin related on their Colonial American side would be expected to have an entirely different count than a cousin on their more recent German size. Of course this become more complex if you're looking at persons with allot of ancestors from endogamous populations. With FF you at least have the raw data to get a sense of what this number should be. thks On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Diana Gale Matthiesen <[email protected]>wrote: > I think I didn't frame my question correctly. I'm not asking for a > yes/no answer to the question of whether or not these individuals are > related - I know it's not that easy. I'm asking what the probability > is or, rather, what everyone's empirical experience is. In other > words, for the confirmed cousins you have tested (ones with a known > paper connection), how many mutual matches did you get (matches "in > common with")? > > In my case (one each): > > 1st cousin = 30 > 3rd cousin (1R) = 7 > 3rd cousin (2R) = 11 > 4th cousin = 6 > 4th cousin (1R) = 2 > 7th cousin = 2 > > I'm wondering what others have experienced along this line. > > What's bugging me, I think, is that, after nearly eight years of > managing Y-DNA surname projects, I have a pretty good feel for what is > and is not reasonable in terms of matching someone in genealogical > time. In contrast, with FamilyFinder, I have far too little > experience to even have a sense of what is or is not plausible. I'm > just looking for ballpark figures here of the typical number of mutual > matches at each level of cousin, so I know when to ignore something > and when to take a closer look. > > Or has someone already compiled something along this line? > > Diana > > > > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >